Mary Elizabeth Bentley (born December 26, 1961) is a

business Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for pr ...

woman from Perryville, Arkansas, who is a Republican member of the

Arkansas House of Representatives The Arkansas State House of Representatives is the lower house of the Arkansas General Assembly, the state legislature of the US state of Arkansas. The House is composed of 100 members elected from an equal amount of constituencies across the ...

for District 73, which encompasses parts of

Yell A yell is a loud vocalization; see screaming. Yell may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Yell, Shetland, one of the North Isles of the Shetland archipelago, Scotland * Yell Sound, Shetland, Scotland United States * Yell, Tennessee, an unin ...

, Pope, Perry, and Conway counties in the central portion of her state. On March 16, 2021, Bentley introduced House Bill 1749 which sought to provide safeguards for teachers who address students by other than their preferred name or pronouns. She argued in support of the bill by saying, "It's helping those professors and teachers in our schools that do not want to be sued for not using a certain person's pronoun." Human rights advocates said that the bill targeted transgender people. In 2021, she sponsored legislation to allow the teaching of the pseudoscientific religious theory of

creationism Creationism is the religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of divine creation. Gunn 2004, p. 9, "The ''Concise Oxford Dictionary'' says that creationism is 't ...

in public schools.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bentley, Mary (Arkansas politician) 1961 births Living people Republican Party members of the Arkansas House of Representatives Women state legislators in Arkansas People from Perry County, Arkansas Businesspeople from Arkansas Baptists from Arkansas 21st-century American politicians 21st-century American women politicians